The nearly 50-year-old Preservation Hall Jazz Band embodies the best of New Orleans’ slightly sloshy French Quarter: the music. A cornerstone of the city’s jazz scene, Preservation Hall’s upbeat, brassy tunes sound plucked from a Frenchmen Street second line procession. So It Is (2017), the septet’s second album containing all-original melodies, infuses the band’s historic jazz tunes with Afro-Cuban beats, adding to Preservation Hall’s magical ability to transform melodies into a layered history of New Orleans. Now the prolific band is touring in support of their new record A Tuba to Cuba, out on November 29. Their recent main-stage set at Pickathon was worthy of all the standing ovations, and their upcoming show, while indoors, should be just as marvelous. by Alex Zielinski